Cropping
First of all, you will want to ‘crop’ the scan or, in other words, remove any borders or empty space around the photo. Some scanners can ‘auto-crop’ your photos, but to get exactly what you want, do it yourself.
Colour settings
Next, you should confirm the colour settings. Many flatbed scanners will attempt to detect the type of item you are scanning as a ‘document’, ‘text’ or ‘photo’. It is always a good idea to check that the scanner has identified the type correctly and is not about to save your photo in the wrong format.
CORRECTING DEFECTS IN SCANS
35mm slides and negatives are very small and have to be magnified considerably to produce prints. This also magnifies any dust or hairs on the negative and this can easily spoil the image. You can use a blower brush or compressed air to try to dislodge any debris from the film before you scan it, but while this can help, it seldom eliminates dust entirely.
However, scanner makers have found a solution. Some scanners can identify dust particles, which stand proud of the film surface, using a special infra-red scan. Once the scanner knows the location of these particles it can ‘fill in’ the defects during the main scan to produce ‘spotless’ images. ‘Digital ICE’ technology is the best-known example of this.
Image adjustment settings
Now check the image adjustment settings. Most scanners have an ‘auto-adjustment’ option which measures the light values during the preview scan and adjusts the image brightness, contrast and colours automatically. These automatic adjustments will often be correct, but you may sometimes need to make adjustments manually if your photo looks too dark, too light or the wrong colour.
Resolution and output size
The next step is to check the scanning resolution and output size options. This can often be the cause of much confusion. The simplest solution is generally to leave the output image size the same as the original’s (or set the ‘scaling’ to 100 per cent) and then choose a resolution figure appropriate to the item that you are scanning. Afigure of 300dpi or 600dpi is usually plenty for scanning prints, and 2700dpi or 4000dpi will suffice when scanning slides or negatives.
Image formats
Finally, you will need to choose the format of your scanned image file. The JPEG format produces the smallest files and is usually the most efficient option. If you set the ‘quality’ to ‘high’ there will be a negligible loss in quality compared to other formats.
The Future of Photography
Experience has shown that trying to predict the future is fraught with problems. It is all too easy to get things laughably wrong. There are two types of change: evolution and revolution. Evolution is easiest to anticipate. You start from where you are now and simply project forward. But progress is rarely linear and logical. Which of us at the turn of the century would have anticipated that within five years virtually every mobile phone would incorporate a digital camera?
Pixel count
One thing we can be reasonably sure of in the future of photography is that camera pixel count will continue to rise – though how much benefit that will be to anyone other than the professional photographer is another matter entirely. The resolution currently available on even inexpensive models of digital camera is more than sufficient to produce quality images that will satisfy most amateurs – whether they want to view them on screen or make prints. Not many photographers often enlarge their pictures beyond A4, and that is easily achievable at the resolutions available today. However, that factor alone will not stop the pixel count rising – even though bigger files mean longer processing times and require more storage capacity.
Increased capacity
Higher resolutions will inevitably lead to an increase in the capacity of removable memory cards. Already you can buy cards that are capable of storing hundreds of quality images – enough for a whole year of picture taking for some photographers. One day, though, it might be possible to store an entire lifetime’s pictures on just one card. Doing so, however, without downloading or archiving them, would be a huge risk. Prudent photographers sensibly prefer to use several lower capacity cards just in case a card gets corrupted – which, happily, does not happen very often.
Screen size
Large screens on cameras will become the norm in the future, and the larger the better. Screens allow you to compose images more effectively, review them more accurately, and share your images with others more easily just after you have taken them. The limiting factor will be the size of the camera itself-which will surely remain as diminutive as possible.
Live preview on SLRs
Being able to see the subject ‘live’ on the LCD monitor has been the norm for many years – but for a long time SLR cameras only showed the image electronically after it had been taken. Pictures were still taken using the tried-and-tested reflex viewing system. In time all cameras will have live viewing, including SLRs, and it will seem perverse to have anything else.
Convergence
It seems likely that the various electronic items we use will gradually converge. Who wants to carry around lots of different gadgets? We are seeing this happen already, with phones featuring not only cameras but also music, email, games, the internet, diary and the capacity to play live and recorded video. Even so, it is likely to be some time before the SLR, used by most photo enthusiasts, goes the way of the dinosaur.
chapter 2 Lenses and Accessories
It is the enormous range of lenses and accessories on the market that makes photography so creative and so enjoyable. Compact digital cameras now generally have a zoom lens with a decent angle from wide-angle to telephoto – making it possible to tackle most popular subjects successfully. Step up to SLR ownership and there are no limits to what can be achieved photographically. Lenses and accessories are available to meet every possible need – from capturing distant subjects such as wildlife and sport to revealing the splendour of vast interiors or panoramic vistas. If you can imagine it, you can take it.
Understanding Lenses
Single lens reflex cameras enable you to change lenses to achieve a variety of effects. The camera’s standard lens will give an angle of view roughly similar to that we perceive with the naked eye, a wide-angle lens enables you to get more into the frame, while a telephoto magnifies distant objects.
There are other lens properties to take into account, apart from their focal length, including the maximum aperture. The larger the maximum aperture, the more light the lens can gather. This is useful in poor light or whenever you want shallow depth-of-field in your photographs, perhaps for throwing backgrounds out of focus, or for creating a similar effect.
Zoom lenses
In modern cameras, zoom lenses have largely taken over from lenses with fixed focal lengths (‘prime’ lenses). The versatility of zooms means that you